


The Other Side of Love

by amethyst-noir (Arbonne)



Series: IronStrange Bingo Collection [3]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Cloak of Levitation (Marvel), Death Wish, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, Hurt Stephen Strange, Injury Recovery, IronStrange Bingo 2019, M/M, Major Character Injury, Protective Stephen Strange, Protective Tony Stark, Retirement, Self-Esteem Issues, and he pays the price for it, but only for a moment because Stephen tries really hard to do better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 10:32:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18009272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arbonne/pseuds/amethyst-noir
Summary: When Tony's suit malfunctions in mid-air Stephen sacrifices himself to save him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well, there was Prompt #245 over @ironstrangeprompts:  
>  _Tony doesn’t know how or what happened. All he knows is that the Cloak is keeping him in the air in a broken suit and Stephen is quickly falling back to Earth. Like an angel stripped of his wings._
> 
> And then there is the square "Suit" on my Bingo Card. How could I resist?! 
> 
> A suit. Could be nice. An event. A wedding. Kinky fun with one of Tony's armors. *points to the prompt up there* Of course I'm not going the nice route but choose to let them suffer!
> 
> When I wander and far I stray  
> When this world has failed me  
> Give me strength and heal my soul  
> When I'm broken when I'm lost,  
> And roads seem neverending  
> Be the path that brings me home  
> When it feels I can't go on  
> Let your armour cover me  
> ~ _Armour_ , VNV Nation

"Flight capability down to 5%, boss. Power levels falling rapidly."

_You don't say._ There was no way he was going to stay up in the air in this suit and Tony was busy trying to reroute the very last of his power reserves to the flight stabilisators to bring him down. Preferably without him ending up squashed on the ground. The very hard, very far below ground.

"How far up are we?"

There was a long pause, followed by a soft "too far up for a human being to get down safely".

Tony allowed himself the luxury of closing his eyes for a second to shut out the visual bombardment of alerts and warning signs flashing all around him. "Cancel all audio alerts and reduce the other data to the left corner of the screen." He could have done himself, but he was still busy trying to squeeze just a little bit more power out of his failing reserves and didn't have the time for that. "And open up a com channel."

"To all of the active Avengers?"

Tony swallowed and took another precious second to stare at the damming data. His suit had become a deathtrap and there was nothing anyone could do against it. _So this is it then_ , he thought and felt surprisingly calm.

"No," he said after a moment. "Just to Stephen." He was already starting to fall - controlled so far but not for long - and there wasn't time for a second call. The last time it had been Pepper, now it would be Stephen. The guy would at least pick up, Tony knew, since he was only a couple of hundred meters below, still fighting against the intruding hordes of _something_ that had encroached on their dimension.

"Hey, Stephen." He tried to keep his panic out of his voice and forced himself to not look his falling altitude. "I have a little problem…"

The holographic emitters inside his helmets were badly broken but they still projected enough for him so see Stephen whirling around far below, zeroing in at his position, and comprehending the situation in a heartbeat.

"Tony!"

He closed his eyes to savor the beloved voice. "Sorry, baby," he murmured and felt his stomach lurch, as he went into free fall for a couple of dozen meters before the stuttering stabilisators caught him once again. "I don't know what happened but I'm out of power. I'm falling and not in a good way." 

"2% stability", FRIDAY announced almost hesitantly.

The power was down to less than one percent and he was still over half a kilometer up in the air. There was no way to get down even halfway controlled under circumstances like this.

"How long?!" Stephen screamed at him.

It took Tony a moment to locate the relevant data and he swallowed hard before answering. The emitters gave out; their power needed elsewhere. "I'll be going into free fall any second now and I'm too high up to…" He didn't finish.

"You're not going to die, Tony!"

"I can't see anything anymore. I'm shutting down all systems in an effort to conserve power to get down controlled for as long as possible but I don't want to be alone in the dark. I'll keep communications online. They don't need that much anyway. But…" Fuck, he was babbling. He broke off and clenched his hands into fists. He would have given everything to spare Stephen this pain but he just _had_ to… "You know that I love you, right? Because I don't want to die without…"

"Tony!"

"I'm sorry. For never telling you before. I love you. So much. I wish..." _That we had more time. I wish that I we'd never gotten together so that this wouldn't break your heart._

_I wish that I could hold you one more time._

He closed his eyes and swallowed against the tears. "Sorry," he whispered. _Goodbye_ , he meant.

"Zero power." FRIDAY, the second to last system to go, hadn't more time to communicate with him. 

"Go to him, _now_.  I don't care - just get yourself over there and catch him. _Please._ Tony? Hold on, help is coming!" Stephen sounded frantic but not really panicked and Tony didn't understand anything; not even when his already escalating fall was suddenly stopped and he went from falling to being stationary in the air from one heartbeat to the next.

"Stephen?" Communication was lost as the very last of the power was gone and left Tony entombed in cold and silent nano-tech. He could feel himself accelerate and had no idea how long it might take until...

Something was on the outside of his helmet. Tony tried to brush it off but is persisted and suddenly he _knew_.

"No, no, no, you don't do that to me!" He batted the something away and ripped the faceplate off the armor. Ice-cold air and the red of the Cloak greeted him. "Where is he?" 

The Cloak pointed to a point somewhat right below them. Tony followed its gesture just in time to see Stephen fall, just like he had been seconds ago. Stephen looked up at him, arms spread out as he fell. He was too far away for Tony to see his face but his whole posture spoke of calm acceptance while Tony's heart tried to beat itself out of his chest.

"Stephen!" He turned to the Cloak. "Go to him!" he screamed but it stubbornly shook itself. But it began to move them both down and towards Stephen. Stephen had probably forced it through magic to prioritize Tony over himself otherwise it would have never chosen him over its master.

_We're too slow_ , Tony realized about when they had overcome about half the distance. Stephen fell at an ever-accelerating speed and the Cloak, hindered by Tony and the dead weight of the suit, just wasn't fast enough. He began to frantically tear off every piece of dead nano tech he could reach in an effort to shed weight.

"Faster!"

The Cloak just _looked_ at him but somehow, they managed to get a little bit faster. 

They were still too late.

Barely a dozen meters separated them when Tony was forced to watch Stephen slam into the ground, admits the wreckage of a downed skyscraper.

The image of Stephen lying on the floor, back unnaturally bent and his arms still spread out would haunt Tony for the rest of his days. So would the slight smile on his face.

_He looks like a fallen angel_ , Tony thought, almost hysterically, when the Cloak finally set him down and he ran over to his lover and fell on his knees beside him. The last particles of the useless nano-armor fell to the ground between them and the Cloak hugged him as if his life depended on it. Maybe it did. Tony felt like collapsing on the ground beside Stephen but the thing kept him upright.

"Stephen. Don't leave me." He reached out and touched rough, warm skin as he carefully cradled Stephens unshaking right hand between his. He had always wanted to stop the eternal trembling. But not like this.

"Not like this," he whispered. "Please, not like this. Don't leave me."

The rest of the Avengers swore that they could hear Tony's anguished scream even without working communication and zeroed in on his location.

They found Tony shaking and crying over Stephen's motionless body with the Cloak spread out over them both to cover them from prying eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where I'm supposed to say sorry, right? So, um, sorry and please go over to part 2 for the inevitable happy end.


	2. Chapter 2

Standing was still a novelty and Stephen reveled in the feeling of being able to do it on his own two feet without any help. Slowly and carefully he tried to move to catch a glimpse of his back in the full-body mirror before him but finally had to concede defeat. The Cloak levitated a little bit behind him and radiated a sense of calm pleasure. It had been ecstatic since the moment Stephen had taken his first hesitant steps with Wong's help and had only settled down recently. Stephen didn't share its feelings but he was finally in a place where he didn't want to fling himself down the Sanctum stairs to finish the job.

A minor spell conjured a magical mirror behind him and he only had to move his neck a little bit to see the whole disaster.

 _Fuck_ , he thought. His back was a nightmare scenario of crisscrossing scars, most of them still red and swollen. No wonder that he could only sleep on his stomach or his side. Together with his shaking, scarred hands he was a… "Monster," he whispered to the mirror. There were no more tears left to cry but once again he wished that magic and science hadn't made an unholy alliance to safe his life once again. _How many times do I have to die before it finally sticks?_ He tried to kick the familiar but unwelcome thought out of his head but only succeeded partially. _It hate this._

"Hey, Stephen? Where are… oh." Tony's smile vanished the moment he came into the room and saw what had happened. The sighed and hurried over. "Why did you do that?" he asked gently. He hurried over and walked right through Stephen's magical mirror which disappeared like the mirage it was. "I asked you to not do it alone."

He came to a standstill behind Stephen and loosely put his hands around his waist. His shirt barely brushed Stephen's back and Stephen suddenly had enough of this careful dancing around. He took a step back, directly into Tony's arms, and pressed his naked back against Tony's clothed body.

"I'm not going to break," he said. The silk felt rather nice against his skin, actually. "Stop being so careful with me."

"Never," Tony answered but his hold tightened and the put his chin on Stephen's shoulder. They both looked at their mirror image. "You deserve nothing else."

There were tears left. Stephen could feel and see them in his eyes. He closed them and leaned back to let take Tony more of his weight. "It looks horrific."

Tony gently turned him around and Stephen opened his eyes to look into Tony's. As always, he was blown away by the love and sheer faith shining in them. "It's just scars. Of course they don't look good but they'll fade, in time. You should have seen my chest after I had half a car battery shoved into it. Or how it looked when the arc reactor was poisoning me with palladium. Or after Steve slammed his shield into it." He took Stephen's right hand and put it over his heart. As always, the strong and slightly irregular beat comforted Stephen and he found himself nodding in hesitant agreement.

He _knew_ all that, yes, but seeing the damage for the first time…

Tony smiled as Stephen's fingers found their way between his shirt to the naked skin beneath and helped him along by opening two of the buttons. Stephen could feel the raised scar tissue, not too different from how his back would look after it had finished healing. He flinched a little but said nothing when one of Tony's hands settled on his hip, fingers hooked into the waistband of his dress pants, while the other landed in the middle of his back. 

"You're the most beautiful man I have ever laid eyes on," Tony whispered and leaned in for a kiss. "And after the party I will take you back here and show you just how much I love and want you."

Stephen shivered in pleasure, annoyed at himself for being so transparent. Not being desirable in Tony's eyes had been one of his concerns and the reason he hadn't allowed Tony to share his bed or help him in the bathroom these last few months. Tony had understood and backed off but his obvious sorrow had broken Stephen's heart all over again. Especially now that the pain of the various surgeries and his recovery had faded to an ignorable deep ache, not too different from the one in his hands, he had started to long for Tony's hands on his body again. It was a miracle that Tony had stayed with him, even though Stephen had tried pretty much everything to get him to leave.

Tony's hand had, predictably, settled exactly on the spot where his spine had been too damaged and part of it had to be replaced by magical enhanced nano-tech. Tony's genius and Wong's magic, along with the top-notch medical facility of the Avengers Initiative, had saved his life and his mobility. Hand-to-hand combat and Yoga poses that required lots of flexibility were things of the past but in time he would be able to move almost normally in his day to day life.

He put his head on Tony's shoulder, inhaled the familiar, beloved scent of his aftershave and enjoyed the feeling of Tony carefully caressing his back.

 _Treasure what you have and don't lose yourself to mourning what you've lost_ , Wong had told him when Stephen, embittered and in more pain than ever before in his life, had asked him why they just hadn't let him die in the wreckage of the downed building. _You know why_ , he had added after a moment. _Don't be an idiot and talk to Stark. The guy's convinced you regret saving him and is this close to running away. Or killing himself. I'm honestly not sure what._

The idea of Tony running away - of _leaving_ him or, even worse, _hurting_ himself - had finally broken through the haze of pain and regret he'd surrounded himself with after waking up from certain death once again and he'd started to let Tony in. 

_I'm never putting anyone in the position of choosing my life over theirs again._ Tony had been in tears by then, holding on to Stephen's trembling hands as if they were his lifeline. Maybe they were, Stephen would never know. _From now on I'm going to be here for you and playing technical support to the Avengers. My time to fly is over._

Just like Stephen's. The Cloak had made it absolutely clear that it would never again bring Stephen up high enough to fall like that. But it was an invaluable help in helping him getting around the Sanctum, especially helping with the stairs, and had cushioned his falls more than once when Stephen had misjudged his boundaries and overtaxed himself too early in his recovery.

"Stephen? Hey, baby, don't fall asleep on me. We still have to get the party to get through first." The teasing tone in Tony's voice had been absent for too long and Stephen once again cursed himself for his stubbornness and his tendency to lash out when hurt. It had taken him months to repair the damage he'd done in those first few days after awakening from his coma and only recently Tony had started to treat him like before his fall, finally secure in the knowledge that Stephen wouldn't push him away again.

"'m not asleep," he murmured back. "Just enjoying cuddling with you."

Tony elegantly moved out of his embrace. "So do I but we really have to go now and you're not even dressed yet."

"Can't we just blow them off?"

"No, and you know why. Come on, hop, hop. Here, let me help you." 

The Cloak, helpful as always, brought over Stephen's dress shirt - also white silk - and a white undershirt magically enhanced to support his back and force him into the right posture. He let Tony help him into both without further protest. The dark blue jacket that followed contrasted beautifully with his skin tone and he was once again glad the he had let Tony talk him out of the black one he wanted to wear originally. Tony slipped into his own black jacket in a fraction of the time it had taken Stephen. It hurt only a little bit to see Tony's graceful, almost dancer-like movements.

The alternative would have been to visit a grave today and that would have been unacceptable. Stephen could live with some more physical pain and limited movement in his life; a life without Tony was inconceivable.

Dressed up to impress they looked _incredible_ next to each other and almost all of his damage was hidden away beneath soft fabric. 

"Here," Tony held out his silk gloves but Stephen shook his head. Instead he raised his trembling hands and offered them for inspection and Tony took them between his own by instinct. They looked rather good since he, after some not quite gentle encouraging by Tony, had started to take better care of them. The scars would always be there, just like the shaking and the pain, but the skin looked better and the scars had finally settled down and were less red.

"Will you take me out like this?"

Tony beamed at him, full of pride and joy. "Of course, my love. Let's go, shall we?" He bent down to kiss each hand before letting go. He hadn't thought it possible but he fell in love with Tony even more in that moment. 

Stephen conjured a portal and felt the Cloak settle around his shoulders, completing his outfit and subtly taking some of his weight to make his movements appear smoother. He took the offered arm and they arrived fashionably late at Tony's 50th birthday party, that doubled as his official retirement party, and Stephen's first social outing since his injury.

The last thing Tony did before greeting his adoring fans and colleagues was to pinch Stephen's ass. "Mine," he whispered and grinned.

Stephen smiled and nodded graciously at the assembled horde. "Yours," he agreed softly and grabbed a handful in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr post with notes](https://amethyst-noir.tumblr.com/post/183244038306/other-side-of-love) | [my bingo card](https://amethyst-noir.tumblr.com/bingo2019)  
> thank you for reading! i ❤️ you for giving this thing a chance!


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